Trees destined for removal at Burlington City Hall Park may get a second chance.
The Burlington City Council unanimously passed a resolution Monday that would reopen the design process in an effort to alter the plan to add and preserve more trees.
The measure, introduced by Councilor Jane Knodell (P-Central District), came in response to opposition by the citizen group Keep the Park Green, which has argued that too many trees are slated to be cut down under the current redesign of the downtown park.
The renovations are set to begin in 2019 — and Knodell said the project would remain on track.
“This is not about going back to the beginning and starting all over,” she said. “This is about continuing to amend a plan that has evolved over a period of years.”
Dozens of Keep the Park Green members came out in support of Knodell’s proposal.
The existing plan “is a bully and the trees are its victims,” said Charles Messing. He quoted Abraham Lincoln as he urged the city to reopen the process: “Bad promises are better broken than kept,” Messing said.
Michael Long called the current design “insensitive [and] draconian in regard to the removal of trees.” He added, “It’s just the wrong direction.”
The resolution allows city officials to come up with ways to amend the plan, which they would then bring to a new ad hoc committee. That committee will include two members of Keep the Park Green, two city councilors, Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) or someone he appoints, and two members appointed by Mayor Miro Weinberger’s administration. The Board of Finance would also select an impartial facilitator to moderate the discussion.
The group would then report back to the council in June. The resolution also requests that the city conduct a soil study in an effort to keep existing trees healthy. No more money can be spent on the project until the council receives feedback from the ad hoc committee, according to the resolution.
In exchange, Keep the Park Green will not appeal the Development Review Board approval for the current park design, which was granted in March.
Starting in 2011, the city conducted surveys and held meetings as part of its public engagement effort surrounding the planned redesign. About 950 comments went into crafting the current plans.
“We did hear from a lot of people about what they needed” in City Hall Park, said Kelly Devine, executive director of the Burlington Business Association.
At the meeting Monday, members of the public who oppose the plan noted that the city has spent nearly $700,000 during the seven-year process.
Burlington resident Kienan Christianson described the opposition as part of a larger anti-development movement. “We’re seeing a startling trend in this city of people who want to stop development,” he said. Christianson called the current plans “beautiful and stunning.”
Weinberger said the city was trying to “achieve in a very small space many public objectives.” The mayor described the challenges of receiving conflicting feedback from the public.
Residents have more recently begun to push back against the plan, arguing that they were unaware that such a large number of trees were to be removed as part of the renovation.
It was widespread opposition to the current plan that spurred some councilors to act. Max Tracy (P-Ward 2) said that councilors in wards 2 and 3 conducted a straw poll at the Old North End Neighborhood Planning Assembly last week. Not one person attending supported the current park design, he said.
The resolution “hopefully acknowledges while we’ve made significant strides, that the design is not quite there yet when it comes to removal of trees,” he said in an interview with Seven Days. “We can do better.”
Correction, April 21, 2018: A previous version of this story misidentified Kienan Christianson.
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<3 best local morning news <3 We love our trees. Trees are life and houses to many animals. <3
If development means destroying BUrlington’s neighborhoods and green, then we need to reconsider development.
One point that you missed is that there were just as many if not more Burlington residents speaking in favor of the current plan.
Why don’t the Keep the Park Green people just call themselves the No Group, or Let’s Go Back To Bob Kiss Time!
Also it was stated that over a 1,000 trees have been planted in Burlington. Betting that is more then have been taken down.
As one of the official spokespeople of Keep The Park Green that attended and spoke at the City Council meeting last night on the resolution, I’m really surprised that reporters from Seven Days don’t bother to reach out to us for comment. We certainly would have been appropriate people to interview (or even to quote) in response to the events of the evening. This is not good journalism. Since Seven Days won’t bother to talk to us, I invite people to visit us on Facebook at Keep The Park Green. We have many activities planned for the future, not only this effort to make some modification to the City’s plan to cut down over 60% of the trees and pave a third of the park, but to work in the future on a tree ordinance that will hopefully keep this sort of thing from happening in the future. We’ll keep our supporters up-to-date on the activities of the ad hoc committee that was created by last night’s resolution and we express great thanks to Councilors Knodell, Pine, Tracy and Bushor for their hard work on this resolution and the other Councilors for passing it. Most importantly, we thank our supporters for their dedication to the trees in City Hall Park and want them to know that we will do everything possible within the confines of the committee created by the resolution to protect those trees.
This plan went all of the way through a public process. There weren’t any back room deals, there were a bunch of public meetings and design changes. The elected members of the City Council approved it. The citizen led DRB approved it. AND YET…because a few people are afraid of change it gets the boot in favor another committee.
We keep being told that Burlington needs for process and transparency and yet the same people who say we need it, don’t seem to mind throwing all of it out as soon as the outcome isn’t what they want. Good for them, it just sucks that our broader community will still feel unwelcome in City Hall Park.
Welcome to Burlington, where the most conservative people are Progressives.
This is just a small speed bump for Miro’s “Pave It All” Master Plan for the city. He will send in his jackals to torpedo any attempt to keep a small amount of trees in City Hall park. Miro will not tolerate ANY disruption to his Grand Vision of remaking the city in his own superior image. And he will marshal his monied enforcers against anyone who dares to resist him.
The Chamber of Commerce sycophants will say that any consideration of keeping trees and a green park is anti-development. They are making plain their hatred of anything that stops the privatization, gentrification, and looting of the Commons and their own personal profits . They are Trumpian style Capitalists.
City Council may not be as useless or limp as they first appear. At least for the moment, anyways.
Cheer up, beautiful people . . .this is your chance to make things right.
To set the record straight, the public was never told what was going to happen with the trees when this planning process was going forward. You can check the cctv video record on that. Keep The Park Green made the tree cutting plan public because no one else did. Members of our organization attended 19 different planning meetings and we were never given a straight answer about what would happen to the trees. If the planners had been upfront about how many trees would be cut throughout the process, Keep The Park Green would not have had to come forward as we did. When we did, there was a huge outcry, and that’s why this resolution received the support it did. Signing off now because we are not interested in interaction with haters. We all want a park that is safe with good community policing, good maintenance and a green canopy. Thanks again to all who supported this effort to keep our park green. We will keep working hard to protect it!
I just want to say the dislikers are doing a great job on this comment section. There is a lot of money in this project. I’d say just fix the project so a majority of trees stay. Trees make a park. [Okay, I’ll bet I get ten likes and 20 dislikes. Go for it.]
Jesus Christ on a cracker. You people. You can’t “bully” trees. They are trees, not people. You also can’t force something that is dying to live. Science doesn’t work that way.
“Kienan Christenson described the opposition as part of a larger anti-development movement. “We’re seeing a startling trend in this city of people who want to stop development,”
Hmm..wonder who brought this on?
@ NorthOldEnder
Paving it all……….. say it enough times and someone will believe it,
As stated last night at the City Council meeting since 2011, Miro has been Mayor since 2012, over 1,000 trees have been planted in the city.
Tell me again how he is Paving it all.
Our greatest asset in that park are the trees. A good park redesign would work around keeping as many shade giving trees as it can. A sidewalk or other structure could go anywhere. A tree thats been growing for 40 years is not easily moved or replaced. Thank you to all who have spoken out to save the trees! City Hall Park can be renewed AND keep the trees.
The things people in Burlington get all hysterical about never ceases to be a great source of amusement for me. But its no surprise. These are the people that inflicted Bernie Sanders on the rest of us so its no shock that the thought of taking down a few trees would give some Burlingtonians the vapors. Its both pathetic and amusing at the same time.
I’d like to respond to a comment for my previous comment. The person said,
“Jesus Christ on a cracker. You people. You can’t “bully” trees. They are trees, not people. You also can’t force something that is dying to live. Science doesn’t work that way.”
Did Jesus stand on a cracker? No, it was a joke. The idea of the plan “bullying the trees” was a metaphor. We believe that science will support the saving of most full-grown trees in City Hall Park. The trees aren’t dying all at once. Keep the Park Green is not against progress, or science, or fixing up the park. It is simply against taking more than half the trees for the sake of the design of the Plan. We need to find a compromise, and that is why we have this Resolution. Bless the City Council for seeing our point. This is democracy in action.
Aren’t the trees pretty much dead anyways? I have never once said to myself in 30 years of living in Burlington, “I want to go hangout at City Hall Park.” The park, at the moment, is completely worthless. It is a terrible park. I am scared to walk through it most of the time because there are always drunk/high homeless people chugging Bud Ice and yelling at my dog. Literally do anything else with the park, or just get rid of the park and build an apartment building. The trees are going to die, no matter what you do folks, just take them down now and move on. Make a park that people want to actually go to. Or just use the money and plant a full-time police officer in the park to make it feel more comfortable to be at. Jesus Christ on a cracker!
Thank you Monique and Keep the Park Green for all the great work you are doing.
How was $700,000 spent? It could have created good jobs — caretakers of City Hall Park, for example. It could have provided maintenance and repairs for the sidewalks and fountain, restored healthy soils for trees, lawn, and gardens, and added benches and game tables.
@Margaret Paul
Our greatest asset in that park are the trees.
Actually isn’t our greatest asset the people in the park? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Let’s have a park for everyone, not just for the people who need a cause.
@BradD agreed, I would love to have a great park that is welcoming and that I actually want to go to. The fact that there is a small group of people who have made it their life mission to save diseased and dying trees is the most Burlington thing ever. It is comical and embarrassing (in my clearly biased opinion). I love trees, I am all about trees. But when a park has literally been a s#$%thole for 30 years, its time for change. We have AWESOME plans to fix it. Lets do it folks
“It is not about anti-development.”
Uh, I’m sorry but that is laughable.
It’s TOTALLY about anti-development. It’s about anti-everything. No mall redevelopment. No new buildings. No sale of BT. No completion of the southern connector. No new park. No new jets. No mural. No no no. Nothing nothing nothing. Keep everything exactly the way it is now. Burlington has reached a state of perfection!
The current city hall park is a terrible place. But, true to form, as soon as someone makes a peep about changing it, the NOs and ANTI’s swing into action to prevent any change.
@BDE I did use my voice, to vocally support the redevelopment plans of the park which are fantastic and amazing and were approved by the city through a very normally and well run public process. Lets cut down these trees and get to work. #forward
Given the ongoing attacks on democracy around the globe (and inside the White House), it is naive to think Burlington is immune to authoritarian impulses. But make no mistake: the Council’s action is not about park design; loss of shade and grass; or trampled tree roots. It’s about trampling democratic processes.
How ironic the four Council “progressives” proposed the resolution reversing the Development Review Board (DRB) approval. And how embarrassing for the rest of Council to follow suit. A WTF moment indeed! And all because a small (<200) and vocal group of opponents did not receive the outcome it wanted.
I do not know the design details of the plan approved by the DRB; I am not an urban designer or expert. However, I am confident the City achieved its goal of ensuring City Hall Park will meet the 21st century challenges of being a being BTV’s multi-purpose, outdoor living room to be enjoyed by all. And the process was an example of participatory democracy: an open and public forum executed over several years complete with focus groups, public hearings and vigorous dialogue by approximately 1000 interested citizens. Their efforts and input were distilled by design professionals into a plan that was reviewed and approved by the DRB. For the Council to ignore the public record in this matter is self-righteous and arrogant.
I’ve been told there is more to this “complicated” story. But as we learned in the recent Council handling of the BT sale, the Council doesn’t do complicated. And in this instance, it has chosen to reward the bad behavior by the complaining few, and punish the good work of the many who chose to participate in a positive way, Not a good look.
@BDE
Does it matter that Miro didn’t personally plant over a 1,000 trees. No! You have his support and I am sure that all the people with a cause would put the blame on him if one tree is cut down.
There’s another side to this too and that’s money. My understanding is the Pomerleau’s gift towards park renovation ($500K?) was tied to the water splash area. Mr. Pomerleau wanted it, so in order to gain his gift the design included the splash area. I don’t see why people are so quick to criticize people who want to save some shade trees and are willing to accept one person’s influential gift.